Cherry Ames Boxed Set 1-4

by Helen Wells

  Cherry started off doubtful but determined. She carefully noted the two tall pines at the camp’s entrance to the woods. Knowing that the children were counting on her, her earlier fatigue seemed to melt away. Cherry hurried along the night road in the frosty country air. The road was quite bright, full of blue moonlight. Here and there a jeep or soldiers in two’s passed her. No one stopped her, her nurse’s coveralls were her guarantee. If the Blues were really on their way, she certainly could not see or hear them. She memorized landmarks so that she could find her way back—a big oak, a bend in the road, a broken fence. She was worried about leaving bivouac and she was worried lest four-year-old Jack might have suffered seriously from this delay. She must treat him quickly and get right back. The last quarter mile, she ran.

  When Cherry knocked on the farmhouse door, Sally opened it. “I knew you’d come!” she cried. Behind her was a tall, worn-looking man in blue jeans, the children’s father.

  “I sure am glad you came, Nurse,” Mr. Johnson said, shaking her hand for a long time. “My wife’s in the hospital and I just don’t know how to——”

  Cherry released her hand and glanced quickly around the farm kitchen. “Well, don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll have Jack fixed up in no time.”

  But when they led her upstairs into a little dormer room and Cherry saw the limp, towheaded little boy, she knew he could not be “fixed up in no time.” He had a nasty cut, and there was danger of infection. Cherry would have to work long and carefully to get the boy out of danger.

  She sent Sally downstairs to boil water, and sent Mr. Johnson to sterilize seissors and pliers, in place of any other equipment, and spread the contents of her first-aid kit on a table. Meanwhile, she talked softly and reassuringly to little Jack. It seemed forever until his father and Sally returned with the things Cherry had requested. Then, with their assistance, she set to work. But they were slow and fumbling and upset, and made Cherry’s work harder instead of easier. She had to work slowly, too, to spare Jack pain.

  With the wound treated and dressed, Cherry realized that her work was only half done. She sat down and explained to Mr. Johnson, and to Sally too, how to take care of Jack and how to change the dressing. “And now,” Cherry said, with a distressed look at her wrist watch, “I must be going. It’s very late.” She had been here all of two hours!

  “Thank you, thank you!” Mr. Johnson and Sally cried, as she hurried downstairs and out the door. And the little girl called, “I knew you’d come!”

  Cherry smiled and waved. She felt almost as relieved as they did. But… two hours! She anxiously turned into the road.

  She hurried along as fast as she could. It was darker now, for the moon was behind the clouds. She did not meet even one soldier on her way back. That gave her a pang. Was she on the right road? Yes, there was the big oak, and here was the broken fence. She had taken the right turning, all right. But it was curious that the road was so empty. There were no sounds, either, from her own camp nor from the “enemy,” only faint night rustlings.

  It was a relief to climb the last shadowy incline and see the tall pines that flanked the entrance to camp. This was the spot—those pines were unmistakable!

  But where was the sentry?

  And where were the rows of tents?

  Cherry fearfully peered into the woods. There was not a sign of a living creature, not a tent, not even the most guarded flicker of light, nor a sound in these dense shadows. There was nothing but tree trunks and a black roof of leaves. She must have picked the wrong spot to enter this far-flung wood, she thought, her heart sinking.

  She stepped back and surveyed the pines again. No, these were the same two pines. She remembered them clearly, one with its top like a steeple. This road was the right road, too. But how could it be? Where was everyone? She must be dreaming! The camp had vanished!

  Cherry shivered. “How could so many men and tons of equipment and heavy field mortars and tanks and jeeps all just… just disappear in a puff of smoke? In only two hours? Surely I must be in the wrong spot!”

  She ventured a little way into the tangled forest. There she dimly made out tire and tank tracks in the earth, many footprints, and fresh holes where tent stakes had been. This was the place, all right! She was not dreaming. The camp had been here and gone!

  Trembling all over, Cherry tried to figure out what must have taken place. They had broken camp, in secrecy and haste and silence, and moved on. Why? She remembered the advancing Blues. Her own Tans must have evacuated to avoid being encircled. They had moved to a spot the Blues would not guess. “And a location I can’t guess, either,” Cherry thought desperately.

  She ran to the road and peered in all directions. But she could see little on the night-clouded roads and misty fields. Certainly she could not see, nor hear, any troops moving, whether Tans or Blues.

  Suddenly she was terribly frightened. She was lost in the woods, alone, at night!

  “Oh, what am I to do?” Cherry gasped. She sank down on a big stone, nearly crying. She never could find her own unit in the dark, in unknown countryside! Maybe the Blues would not come by this way, either, to pick her up. She could not stay alone in the woods all night! Cherry shuddered. She tried hard to think.

  She might go back to the Johnson’s and ask the family to let her stay overnight. But by now, the road back was deserted and very dark… not a safe place to go walking alone. “Besides, I’m a soldier now,” Cherry thought. “If I went to the farmhouse, it would be desertion or something really had like that. Oh, heavens! How foolhardy I was! Those sentries told me not to go!”

  She got up off the stone and started walking aimlessly around and around in the dark, before the two tall pines. She had not the faintest idea of what to do next. Slight animal noises from the woods, a crackle of a twig, the wind’s sudden sigh, stretched her nerves taut. The night was growing colder. She shivered under her coveralls.

  Out of the weedy moaning of the wind, she thought she heard a voice. She backed in fright into a dense shadow. Whatever it was, she did not want to face it alone!

  The voice went on, calling, calling. Cherry thought of all the dread possibilities that voice might mean and felt her own voice die in her fear-tightened throat. Gradually, as the voice grew nearer, she made out that it called her own name.

  Then on a little hillock, silhouetted against the chilly moon, she saw a tall, wild figure, hitching up his trousers with a well-known gesture. Bunce!

  She ran forward, voiceless, but waving her arms wildly. Bunce saw her and came running too.

  “You crazy idiot!” he yelled at her. They abruptly halted face to face. “Beg your pardon, Lieutenant—gee whiz, I was worried! You all right, Miss Cherry?”

  Cherry gasped and found her voice. “Yes… I’m… all right. What are you doing here?”

  “Waited for you, of course!”

  “But you shouldn’t have. An enlisted man has no right to go off on his own. Bunce, you’ll be in trouble.”

  He took off his jacket and put it around her. “You’re not in trouble, I s’pose? Why, Miss Cherry, when the girls found out you weren’t there and they had to go on without you… why, they cried! Miss Jones and Miss Evans and Miss Warren came running and told me. They were scared to report it to anyone else, I guess.”

  Cherry was slowly gathering her wits together. “Does Captain Upham know? Or Colonel Wylie?” Bunce shook his head. That was a relief! “Does Captain Endicott know?”

  The boy managed a laugh, “Gosh, I hope not! ’Specially after that little tussle I had with him this afternoon. Say, where were you, anyhow?”

  Cherry confessed.

  “Well, it sounds like those kids needed help,” Bunce sympathized. “Come on now. I know where they went. We can catch up if we walk fast!”

  They started down the road at a fast trot. Suddenly they heard a jeep’s motor. Around the bend of the road, the vehicle whirled toward them, and Cherry exclaimed, “Thank goodness! They’ve sent someone back for us!�
��

  “You think that’s good, do you?” Bunce muttered.

  The jeep bounced up, throwing dust and pin points of blackout lights on them, and screeched to a sharp stop. Beside the expressionless driver was Captain Endicott. He got out. He was too disgusted for a moment to speak.

  “Lieutenant Ames! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cherry quavered. She added in a whisper, “I went back to those children.”

  “You broke my specific order, Lieutenant Ames,” Captain Endicott said sharply. His handsome face was coldly official. He might never have seen Cherry before. “As for you, Smith,” he said with icy dislike, “leaving your post against orders constitutes insubordination. Your motive has nothing to do with breaking discipline. You should have reported Lieutenant Ames’s being missing at once, instead of taking matters into your own hands.”

  Cherry started to defend him, “But Private Smith only meant to——”

  Captain Endicott silenced her. “And I’ll thank you not to interfere! Now get into that jeep, both of you.”

  Cherry and Bunce mournfully climbed into the back seat. As the jeep jounced along, they looked at one another but decided against talking. First she had a quarrel with Lex and now she had further antagonized Endicott! And poor Bunce probably was on his way to the guardhouse—on her account!

  CHAPTER VI

  Secret Journey

  A FEW MORNINGS LATER, CHERRY WAS AT THE guardhouse on her lunch hour, paying a visit. The guard let Bunce come out into the cheerless corridor. He and Cherry sat down morosely, side by side on a hard wooden bench.

  “I guess you know what I came to say,” she started, smoothing her olive drab cape. “Thank you and … I’m sorry.”

  Bunce grinned at her. “Aw, don’t be sorry, Miss Cherry. I’m used to this place, sort of at home here by now. Besides, didn’t you hear about me going hunting?”

  Cherry’s dark eyes sparkled, but she tried to look disapproving, as Bunce explained. Unable to resist the fall weather, the woods full of animals, and all those rifles around, he had reverted to his happier civilian habits. He had gone AWOL for one glorious day. When he returned with a nice bag, the Commanding Officer sent the game to the kitchens and Bunce to oblivion. Cherry shook her head at him. Going AWOL was bad enough, but obtaining ammunition for personal use was a very serious offense.

  “Only one thing I really mind,” Bunce finished thoughtfully. “Mom might hear about my bouncing around. She’s workin’ so hard in a war factory, I’d be kind of sorry to worry her, or anything.”

  “Then why don’t you behave?” Cherry asked, laughing a little. “Honestly, now, why don’t you behave yourself? You could get promoted to medical technician and go to the Army Medical Technicians’ School—that’s al-most as good as being a doctor, you know—if you’d only reform.”

  Bunce shrugged his big, loosely knit shoulders. “I guess I might, if you were around all the time to keep after me. But now that you’re goin’ away I guess I might as well say good-by to you now forever.”

  “Why, what in the world do you mean?” Cherry was startled at Bunce’s long face.

  “Well, you’ll be leaving any minute. Shucks, your training’s over. And then you’ll go somewhere and I’ll go somewhere and we’ll never see each other any more.” He scraped one big foot unhappily along the floor.

  “We might meet again some place else,” Cherry suggested.

  But Bunce dolefully shook his head. “Good-by, Miss Cherry. You’ve been real nice to me. Well … good luck.” The guard came and took him back.

  Cherry was half-amused, half-shaken by Bunce’s sudden and dolorous farewell. But the boy proved to be right. That very afternoon the Chief Nurse called all of Cherry’s unit off the wards for an emergency meeting.

  “From this moment,” she told them, “you and the entire Spencer unit are on alert. You are to hold yourselves in instant readiness for departure at any hour of the day or night. I cannot tell you your destination; for reasons of security, I do not even know myself. You are to go back to your duties, but your bags must be packed, your quarters in perfect order. You will preserve the strictest secrecy, and exercise all your discretion. No one but yourselves is to know you are alerted. All this is for your own safety.” And with that, the stern Chief Nurse dismissed them.

  The girls did not discuss the great news, even in attention-inviting whispers, until they were safely within the privacy of their own quarters. Then questions and speculations had a field day, as excited girls piled into Cherry’s room.

  A few things they managed to figure out by common sense. If no one knew exactly when they were leaving, or where they were going, no one could interfere maliciously with their vital travel. Probably, too, the uncertainty of when they were to leave meant they had to go when there happened to be trains and ships free to take them. They got that far, then the meager, stubborn facts yielded no more.

  There was more hushed, excited talk that night with “Ding” and Lex and Hal Freeman in one of the medical buildings. The girls were bursting with rosy hopes and romantic notions. Lex told them bluntly:

  “It isn’t going to be a joy ride. You won’t end up in a resort. Better not fool yourselves with a lot of fine ideas, or you’ll be awfully disappointed later.”

  Cherry would have said something, but their quarrel on bivouac still rankled a little. Gwen protested, “Oh, Dr. Lex, you’re such a killjoy! Why can’t you let us have a little fun?”

  “Because it’s important to know the truth,” Lex said uncompromisingly. “I know you don’t like me for it. The truth is seldom popular.”

  They did not like him for it. However, his words did sober them. They all recognized that Lex usually saw farther and more clearly than the others.

  Cherry wondered whether Dr. Joe was going with the unit. Early the next morning, she managed to reach him on the telephone.

  “Yes, I know what you want to ask me,” Dr. Joe said. “The answer is that I’m permanently attached to the Spencer unit … Yes, I’m glad, too … Have you heard from your mother? … Wish I could see Midge, but it’s too far … Well, Cherry, I’ll see you as soon as I can.” And he hung up. It was an unsatisfactory conversation. Apparently Dr. Joe could not talk about his work. But at least she knew, now, that Dr. Joe would go overseas with Spencer unit. It was not the end of Dr. Joe.

  It was the end of Paul Endicott, thank goodness. Cherry hoped that now, with their leaving, Vivian would forget him. Vivian was fretting because she could not say good-by to Endicott. Cherry thought of saying good-by to Bunce. But that was forbidden. Cherry tensely went about her ward duties that morning. She was thinking of home and her family, especially of her mother. But there was nothing that she, or any of them, could do except wait from hour to hour, even from minute to minute. In her room, closet and bureau were emptied, her bag was packed, the room ready for instant inspection. At two that afternoon they were called to stand inspection. But then they were sent back to their duties, more keyed up than ever. The call might come at any moment.

  Now that she knew she was leaving, Fort Herold suddenly became dear to Cherry. Walking across the Post late that same afternoon, she noted for the final time the sign in the admission hut, “We do the difficult immediately, the impossible takes a little longer” … heard the cafeteria juke box playing a peppy song, and far off, a band playing a march … gazed upon the long, low, wooden barracks with the rays of the setting sun slanting down the neat company streets. A cannon boomed once, a bugle rang out. Retreat! Jeeps and olive drab cars stopped in the roads where they were, near and far soldiers and nurses halted and faced toward the flag, toward the center and heart of the Post. The bugle blew retreat. Cherry, saluting, watched the American flag slowly flutter down. Two soldiers caught it as the bugle’s notes rang around the sky and trembled in the fading air. The camp, deeply stirred and with a renewed sense of unity, slowly moved again. The day was over.

  Before daybreak the following morning, at five A.M., Che
rry was awakened and told that a train was waiting for the Spencer unit. She dressed swiftly, took her suitcase, and with the other girls, rapidly boarded a bus in the chill gray light. Fort Herold did not see them streak down the withering country roads. The train reserved for them carried other troops too, sleepy boys in olive drab who waved at them out the window as the nurses boarded their own car. Cherry was filled with strange feelings. They slipped away like thieves, under cover of darkness and silence. So this was what war was like!

  But when the train pulled into the edge of New York City at eight A.M., it certainly was exciting to feel the pulse of the great nervous city, to see its silvery towers glinting in the sun and clouds. And when the girls were promptly treated to breakfast in huge, jammed Pennsylvania Station, Cherry began to enjoy things. After breakfast, pushing through the crowded station, Cherry marveled at the numbers of soldiers and sailors here, going, coming, saying joyous hellos or difficult good-bys to their families and their girls. On a lower level, she saw a hundred boys in olive drab rise from benches, hoist their enormous barracks bags to their backs, and gamely if wistfully start off. Something caught in Cherry’s throat, seeing the lonesomeness in their young faces. “I’m glad I’m going to be on hand to take care of them,” she thought. Indeed, Cherry and all the girls, judging by their proud, determined faces, planned to win this war all by themselves.

  Their next train—were they going north or south or west?—was a great, sleek, transcontinental “flier” with endless chains of Pullmans and dining cars and a lounge car. “We must be going a long way,” she realized.

  They traveled all day. By twilight Cherry saw that the fields whizzing by outside were softer and still green. They were going south! But how far south? And from there, what corner of the world would they sail to? Cherry was torn between thrills and serious idealism and a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. They ate in the dining car that night, where an elderly, imposing Colonel invited Cherry and Ann to share his table, making them feel that the President of the United States himself was counting on them personally. They slept in Pullman berths, to the singing of steel wheels on rails. They rode a second day and a second night.